


peace, officers

by surgicalstainless



Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Companionship, F/M, Introverts of the World Unite! (Separately), Mentions of Canon-Typical Drug Use, Missing Scene, mentions of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/pseuds/surgicalstainless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's never quiet in Anderson's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	peace, officers

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to [Amethystina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethystina/pseuds/Amethystina), who makes encouraging noises in all the right places.

It was never quiet in Anderson's head.

That didn't make her anything special, of course — nowhere in Mega City One was quiet, the whole great sprawling polis muttering and howling day after night. _Silence is golden_ , the proverb went, but in this particular dystopia silence went for _way_ more than that. Peace wasn't something you could afford on a Judge's salary, that's for sure.

Still, the noise was Anderson's _particular_ curse. Hard to hold a conversation when you were swimming in a dozen different currents of thought; hard to pass a test when everyone in the room was practically shouting possible answers at you. She got good at blocking things out, studied impassivity. And she became an expert at finding those little oases of quiet that everyone else overlooked.

Hers was a childhood of storage cupboards and heating vents, forgotten alleys and abandoned rooftops. If Dredd had agreed to hunker down, to wait for backup, Anderson could have hidden them so well no one would have rousted them out. _I was born and raised in a block like this_ , she'd said, and under that careful monotone was — defiance? A little warped pride? 

But Dredd wanted to fight, and that was foreign ground. Walking out there in her new Judge's uniform, helmetless blonde hair shining in dirty secondhand sunlight, Anderson felt like nothing so much as a target. She was meant to, she knew. This was a test. Anderson lifted her chin under the press of all those hostile gazes. She knew _people_ , knew them inside and out, and she could damned well make a difference if she got the chance.

This was a _test_.

There was a strange kind of peace, Anderson learned, in the ringing silence just after a gun battle. Everything seemed so _quiet_ , compared to what had gone before, and mostly the survivors' thoughts were scattered, shocked into blankness. The moment hung, suspended like a cloud of Slo-mo vapor — then Dredd said her name, and Anderson lowered her weapon unfired.

This was a test, and the clamor in Anderson's head sounded like she was failing.

———

You could find quiet in the strangest places.

While the dust settled after a gunfight. In the wary space around their appearance on the skate park, under drifting motes of ash that almost looked like snowflakes in the dark. Alone in a room, tied to a chair, waiting to die.

In that same room, following through on a roundhouse kick, listening to Kay's thoughts turn off like a flicked switch.

That one would haunt her later, Anderson knew, but in the moment it had been bitter satisfaction. If this was still a test, that was one answer that seemed absolutely right. Judgement _passed_.

Later, in an elevator, Dredd's broad hands lifting her armor, slick with blood. He sealed her wound and Anderson just drifted, all the world hushed for once. The staples bit. Dredd's mouth tightened with something that might have been concern. The elevator opened on the ground floor with a muffled _ding_ , and sunlight streamed in to dazzle Anderson's eyes.

———

Was a Judge's uniform still a Judge's uniform if it didn't have a badge? Maybe. Probably. It didn't matter. The paramedics called her "Judge" as she waved them off, like her armor wasn't slick shining red and her ears weren't ringing. The Hall of Justice called her "Judge Anderson" when she arrived to turn in her uniform and get someone to look at her side. She figured it was some kind of mistake. Control not caught up yet, or something. 

But then the doctor in the Med Bay called her "Judge" too, said _congratulations_ , smiled at her as he taped down the last corner of clean white gauze — it was too loud in there, too _much_. Beeping monitors and rattling instruments, chattering nurses; patient Judges staying stoic about their injuries but _painpainpain_ ran a serrated blade across the edge of her brain —

She hit the door so hard it slammed against the wall. The sound echoed up and down, and Anderson raced the echoes up, up, _up_ until she burned to breathe and had to stop.

She knew people, and one thing about people? They hated to take the stairs. Here, high in the Hall of Justice, hidden behind tons of cold concrete, was the most alone Anderson had been in an age. She sank onto a stair and just _sat_ , staring at nothing, and let the silence swallow her.

———

Eventually, someone sat down beside her.

She hadn't heard them coming, which was a dull kind of surprise. Hard to sneak up on a psychic. Footsteps may be soft but thoughts are loud, and wasn't that just the problem?

But here, in the stairwell, in the quiet:

Boots scuffed concrete, armor creaked as it settled. A hushed huff of exhalation, a little _frisson_ as a uniformed thigh pressed a long line of warmth against hers. Fingertips brushing against the dull brass of a badge, held out for her to take.

 _Anderson_ , it said. Hers. There was blood spattered on the metal; whose, she couldn't say. Eventually, she raised her hand to take it.

Dredd leaned back and put his weight on his elbows, the most relaxed she'd ever seen him. He was close; points of contact at elbow, hip to knee. Normally touch amplified the noise in Anderson's head, but now it was nothing but warm. He was _quiet_ , she was startled to notice. He had anger, yes, and — protectiveness, fierce purpose, but it all hummed as a soft static in the channel of his thoughts.

Anderson closed her hand around the badge, opened her mouth to say — something.

Dredd cocked his helmeted head in her direction. "You hear that?" he rasped. Somehow the growl came out gentle, almost.

Anderson listened. "No," she admitted. Was this another test?

Dredd's mouth unbent from its habitual deep frown. One side might even have crooked up a little, though Anderson couldn't really imagine such a thing.

"Yeah," he said. The word fell between them and was swallowed by the waiting silence of the stairwell. 

Eventually, Anderson leaned back onto her elbows, too. It was never quiet in her head, but this — 

This was close.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This movie sank its hooks in me and won't let go. If you wanna talk about _Dredd_ at all, _please_ come message me on [tumblr](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com) so I won't feel so alone :)


End file.
